Last day in NamibRand!!! For this week anyway... 6/25/09

Ok! So this will probably be my last update for a while. I’ve got good news and bad news, unfortunately.

Starting with the bad; all this week we’ve been trying to locate Shanti and still have had no luck. Today we’ve even just finished driving the entire length of the northern half of the Reserve at 20km/h while scanning to try and pick up a signal. Nothing at all. This means two things. Either her collar is malfunctioning or, more likely she’s out of range or out of the Reserve itself. We’ll definitely have to make a plan as to where we can go from here. Luckily, Selma seems quite willing to continue looking for her and the N/a’an ku sê guys have said they will also pitch in. I just hope someone picks up her signal soon…

The good news on the other hand, comes in two parts. First of all, Selma, the Polytechnic student, seems to be keen, able and a fast learner. I think she’ll be able to continue on with the data collection for the boys and with a little help from Paul, Mike & Ann, Flo and Corris; I’ve got high hopes that we won’t lose too much info on their behaviour. It will be tough for her for the first few days but I’ll be back up here next week sometime to box up Misty and Rosy and can help her out with anything she’s struggling with.

The next part of course is about Misty and Rosy. Rome may not have been built in a day but our boma was and I’m very pleased with the result. Not only is it well built and designed, before we had even left yesterday, both cats were wandering through back and forth between the two sections. There only means of crossing through now of course, is the trap cage. They don’t seem bothered at all by it and when I returned to feed them later on, the just ran straight through like nothing had changed. This is excellent and really helps to take some of the worry of all of our shoulders I’m sure. All we need now is the boxes (CCF), some rope (Corris) and we should be ready to go.

So, unless I manage to find Shanti this afternoon, this will be all from me for now. I leave for Cape Town tomorrow but should be back in Namibia sometime next week.

Until then,

James.

PS – And from Rob about the wild female: As has become typical, we are continuing to get very sparse data back from the female's collar (see map), but her latest upload indicates she is now less than 1km from the nearest main road.